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U.S. Justice Department Comes Under Fire for Guidance on Prosecutorial Agreements

By Matt Squire

Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives are saying that guidance issued by the Justice Department on how prosecutors should select monitors for deferred prosecution agreements falls short of addressing broader concerns about possible conflicts of interest. The Justice Department issued a memo on March 7 outlining principles that prosecutors should use when assigning corporate monitors to deferred prosecution and nonprosecution agreements after coming under fire for awarding a $25 million monitoring contract to a firm run by former Attorney General John Ashcroft. The memo "fails to ensure uniformity in the agreements themselves," said Representative John Conyers, a Michigan Democrat,...

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